Events this day in Queer History

Born this day

British author and playwright. Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca (which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1941) and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

After her death in 1989, numerous references were made to her secret bisexuality; an affair with Gertrude Lawrence, as well as her attraction for Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her American publisher, were cited.[16] Du Maurier stated in her memoirs that her father had wanted a son; and, being a tomboy, she had naturally wished to have been born a boy.

Killer Karl Krupp
(1934 – 1995 ) Dutch / US
Wrestler

Bruce Chatwin(1940 - 1989 ) UK
Journalist / Author

Armistead Maupin(1944 – ) US
Author, best known for the popular "Tales of the City" series, set in San Francisco

Died this day

Sir William Dobell (1899 - 1970 ) Australian
Sculptor / Painter

Rebecca Wight(1959 - 1988) US
Hate Crime Victim

Myron Brinig(1896 – 1991) US

Jewish-American author who wrote twenty-one novels from 1929 to 1958. Brinig's novels often dealt with homosexuality. According to the Gay & Lesbian Literary Heritage, Brinig was the "first American Jewish novelist to write in any significant way about the gay experience."

Paul Bartel (1938 - 2000 ) US
Actor / Director / Screenwriter

Larry McKeon(1944 - 2008) US
Politician

Sodomy in history, May 13

1660 — In New Netherland Colony, J.Q. van der Linde, a married man, is tied into a sack and drowned for sodomy with an adolescent male. Three years later his widow files for bankruptcy.

1892 — The Michigan Supreme Court rules that sodomy convictions can be based on unverified information.

1909 — Connecticut reduces the penalty for sodomy from a compulsory life sentence to a maximum of 30 years in prison.

1965 — The Washington Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction over the defendant’s contention that the prosecutor’s closing remarks to the jury constituted misconduct. The defendant didn’t provide text of the remarks, so the Court couldn’t rule on them.